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Time to upgrade my 5150

bettablue

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Feb 21, 2011
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It's taken some time and research, but I finally have the hardware I've been looking for.

I located a network adapter, and a parallel/serial card. This weekend I'll be installing them. I completely understand about setting up IRQs manually for these cards, but I was still curious about installing the parallel/serial card. It is an Everex EV170. I can't tell which revision though. The remaining labeling is just too small for me to read. It has one serial and one parallel port that fits into a single ISA expansion slot. I was also lucky enough to find setup instructions for this card on the web. Lucky, because there about 40 different pin settings and 8 dip switches.
My best friend who used to work on these when they were new, seems to remember setting up 3 IRQs to get the parallel/serial card working properly. That doesn't sound right to me. From what I found both on the web and in a couple of books I purchased on installing expansion cards on the 5150, it should only take 2 IRQs; one for the parallel port and one for the serial port.

I can't think of any reason why it would require more than just the two. Any thoughts before I get into it this weekend?
 
My best friend who used to work on these when they were new, seems to remember setting up 3 IRQs to get the parallel/serial card working properly. That doesn't sound right to me. From what I found both on the web and in a couple of books I purchased on installing expansion cards on the 5150, it should only take 2 IRQs; one for the parallel port and one for the serial port.

I can't think of any reason why it would require more than just the two. Any thoughts before I get into it this weekend?

Some I/O cards had a parallel port and two serial ports (com1 and com2). I'm assuming these cards would need three IRQs? Maybe this is what your friend was referring too?

Tez
 
OK, then is it possible that all I really need to do is add it to the computer? I'll still have to set a couple of switches though, right.
 
Normally you would assign IRQ4 to COM1 and IRQ3 to COM2; as Chuck says, the printer port almost never uses interrupts so you can usually ignore it.

A good overview of com port issues:

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPOR...872f63aeae3ab96d882563ed0068747b?OpenDocument

Thanks Mike. This is exactly what I needed. So the only IRQ that needs to be set will be for the serial port. Cool! This will also save a bit of work. Thanks too for the link.

I am planning on setting the serial port to Com 2, simply because eventually, I MAY install a modem later and would want it on Com 1. Although once I have this card installed, I still want to connect it to an acoustic coupler (geek factor) for dialing into a couple of BBSs. I have my eyes on one right now on E-Bay.

Thanks again.
 
Very little DOS parallel port software actually used IRQs.
In fact, the early version of the AST SixPakPlus card doesn't have interrupt circuitry for the parallel port.

I am planning on setting the serial port to Com 2, simply because eventually, I MAY install a modem later and would want it on Com 1.
Some relevant COM1/COM2 info (in case you don't know):

Although a user manual may refer to "COM1" and "COM2" in regard to switch settings, it is misleading.

For example, if you were to do what you are planning - set your only serial port to 'COM2', you would discover an anomaly:
1. In some DOS programs such Crosstalk, the serial port would appear as 'COM2'.
2. In DOS itself, the same serial port would appear as 'COM1'.

Why?

The authors of programs such as Crosstalk use a straight mapping:
Port at base address 03F8h = "COM1"
Port at base address 02F8h = "COM2"
So in Crosstalk, when you select 'COM2', Crosstalk assumes that you mean the port at base address 02F8h, and it interacts directly with that.

User manuals for serial port cards sometimes do the same: only use 'COM1' and 'COM2', with 'COM1' meaning 03F8h, and 'COM2' meaning 02F8h. Presumably they use 'COM1' and 'COM2' so that users don't get exposed to user-unfriendly things such as '03F8h' and '02F8h'.

DOS though behaves in a different way. When it starts, it assigns COM1/COM2 using different methodology. Refer to the diagram below. Basically, COM1 is your first serial port and COM2 is your second serial port.

Not an issue when you configure your first and only serial port to be at base address 03F8h (which is what IBM documentation indicates to do).

dos_assignment_of_com1_com2.jpg
 
The installation went very smoothly. I did have to configure the new parallel port for LTP2, and ended up setting the serial as com 1 as suggested. All is well, and everything works. Now something new has popped up, litterally. When running an application, I pressed CTRL+ALT+DEL to reboot the computer back into DOS. What's funny is that when the system came back up, I got a message on the screen that read: "Your computer is hosed" Later when doing the same thing, I got another message. This time it read: "Your computer is stoned". I think I have it narrowed down to the DOS 3.1 diskette I was using. Does this sound familiar?
 
Yep - the Stoned virus... man, it's been YEARS since I ran into that one :) It was always one of the more fun ones.

Grab a copy of Central Point Anti-Virus, Viruscan for DOS, etc. Those all run on an 8086/8088 processor with 640kb memory, and should take care of it. As always with a virus, you run the risk of the HD being hosed after the fact, but in most cases I ran into, the HD was fine after cleaning things.

If you need CPAV, send me a PM - I can shoot you images of 1.44mb disks, and IIRC, the CPAV-specific files can be copied over and will fit onto a 360kb floppy for use in your PC.

*edit - also Modem7 has Vet for DOS on his site.
 
Yep - the Stoned virus... man, it's been YEARS since I ran into that one :) It was always one of the more fun ones.

Grab a copy of Central Point Anti-Virus, Viruscan for DOS, etc. Those all run on an 8086/8088 processor with 640kb memory, and should take care of it. As always with a virus, you run the risk of the HD being hosed after the fact, but in most cases I ran into, the HD was fine after cleaning things.

If you need CPAV, send me a PM - I can shoot you images of 1.44mb disks, and IIRC, the CPAV-specific files can be copied over and will fit onto a 360kb floppy for use in your PC.

*edit - also Modem7 has Vet for DOS on his site.

I appreciate the offer. I do have a small issue with that though. My 5150 only has the 2 - 5 1/4" 360 K floppy drives (no hard disk), and it appears that only one of the floppy disks is infected. I suppose I can try my new tweener to scan the disk... But I need to install Windows on it first. Please, send me the disk image. I'll get it running today. You can email it to AllThingsDOS@cox.net

Thanks Maverick.
 
Sucks but so is life, keep in mind viruses stay resident in memory and hijack the floppy write interrupt so if you loaded the virus into memory by booting off an infected floppy, it stays in memory and will infect each new disk it gets access to upon a directory read.

So keep your stack of recently used disks nearby once you get a scanner loaded and once you have a known clean boot disk cold boot (turn off then turn on) the PC. I'm honestly not sure when but viruses that stuck themselves into a different memory (high memory?) could survive a ctrl+alt+del. I could be wrong with that technology not being on the 5150 but better safe than sorry in this event.
 
The earlier variants just displayed messages like, "Your PC is now stoned." They were relatively harmless.

The later variants actually did some damage. Some variants moved the MBR, erased files, and one of them displays flames on the screen.
This virus got around so easily that it was even shipped on some Seagate 5850 drives. The drives were still factory sealed!:D
 
Thank you for sending the tools. They will all be very helpful. Because of other concerns, I never did make it to Fry's today, but will be stopping there tomorrow after work. (It's on the way home) Luckily, the virus is only on the one floppy disk. I should place a warning on the forums though that this was a disk that I had gotten before I had my computer running properly. I can't remember who sent it. But If it's on that floppy, then it may be on some of the other disks the sender has.

None of my other DOS disks are infected though, so that's a good thing.

Spread the word.

Thanks again.
 
Wow... the Stoned Virus! I haven't seen THAT one for years. I DID run across a similar one that said "Your Computer is TOAST!" and then did nothing else, a few weeks ago. I saved it onto a floppy disc, so I can decompile it and see what it actually does.

My FAVORITE virus is the "format c:" virus that puts up a screen that says "press any key to format c:"...... then when you press any key it LOOKS like it's formatting, but is actually just showing numbers. No formatting actually occurs. While it doesn't cause any actual damage, it HAS been known to cause panic attacks.

About 5150's and viri- they typically don't stay in a 5150's memory, since that machine clears all of it's ram when you shut it down, and most viri of that vintage don't attack the bios. So if you've isolated the disks that are infected, you should be fine.
 
My FAVORITE virus is the "format c:" virus that puts up a screen that says "press any key to format c.

I ran into that one some years ago on my Win 95 computer. It scared the hell out of me. I couldn't turn the computer off fast enough. Later, when I found out it was a virus, I found it pretty funny. When I get my tweener running the way I want, I'll scan the infected diskette and remove it. Thanks to whomever, but it seems that this is the only one that is infected.
 
This'll get off topic but what the hell, viruses are interesting in their own right ;-) So my favorite was Operation Rescue II/proalife. Has a little animation from a few different viruses and complains about the right to live and not to abort baby viruses (as artificial life).

There was one format c virus which was pretty funny but only because the programmer actually didn't do it right. It was meant to format the drive in the background while it displays that "Your system is now being formatted" message but they didn't do the /y argument so it actually just sits there waiting for the user to say yes or no. The AV vendors had a very funny description when debugging that one saying that the virus writer obviously didn't make it very far in the dos book.
 
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